Inventory Management

I don't know how many of you can help with this, but there are many bright minds on here that can surely help.....

I think we are spending too much money stocking our 3 service vans. I have always told the guys to buy a case at a time type of thing but I think that may be a mistake.

Anybody have an idea of how to effectively control this, thereby keeping my cashflow at its maximum?

For instance my idea was this:

I can get a printout from my supplier telling me exactly how many of each item I bought last year.....divide that by 12 months and come up with a monthly usage. Than I can subtract what is on the trucks currently.....coming up with what I really need to have monthly. Than my supplier can deliver this monthly supply to my yard and the guys can use it out of the shop......we can adjust the deliveries by what we have or have not used...up or down.

Or....I can have the guys keep a weekly tally of what they use, and on Friday afternoon they can buy exactly what they used on their truck? This will eliminate the "daily" visit to the supplier and also eliminate excess stock on vans, which will help cash flow.

Can't your acctg pkg give you an item print out even if you don't do inventory, and do it for a monthly basis?

I don't have my guys buy stuff. most of the time I have it delivered. If I need it NOW I go get it most of the time. My guys stock from the shop.

I check the bins weekly and order by eyeball. full boxes of fittings, full cases of heads based on how fast they are disappearing and back up everything on the shelf such as funny pipe, glue, primer, stainless clamps, waterproof wire nuts, vavle diaphrams, 9 volt batteries, pvc threaded couplers and plugs, slip x F adp. Some of this slow moving stuff I keep in much smaller bins and I'll order 10 at a time.

I boost qty for upcoming installs and alteration work. Becasue we install sporadically, i sometimes have the guys to a quick truck inventory before I order. They eyeball fittings and wire and count heads, pipe, valves and boxes.

The only thing we stock as a case qty in one truck is rotor heads and then not always.

I think you've seen pics of my shop bins. I can make a list by eyeball in minutes.

Tony,
I think we may exchanged a PM relating to this topic. We went to a "pre-expended bin" arrangement long ago. This enabled us to get away from the nickel - dime inventory routine. The cost of the inventory is billed as "miscellaneous consumables" as a separate line item on the invoices. We simply keep track of the cost of these bins quarterly and adjust our invoice line item charge for that quarter accordingly.
Also, like Harold, no one goes to the counter, all items are delivered (also) cut down on windshield time. Another control measure is to empty all trucks of items on rain days and get excess back to bins.
Not a perfect system, but works. And one that I'm comfortable with (for now). With Regards... devildog